Dr Andy Reisinger, Senior Research Fellow, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University
comments:
"The emissions reduction range of 10 to 20% below 1990 levels set by the New Zealand government goes in the right
direction. However, there is an increasing gap between short-term targets and the long-term climate change goals that
governments say they subscribe to.
"Apart from the concrete 2020 emissions targets, the New Zealand government has set long-term goals of reducing
emissions by 50% by 2050, and to stabilise global greenhouse gas concentrations at 450ppm CO2-equivalent. A broad range
of international studies indicates that if we want to limit global greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to
450ppm CO2-equivalent, then developed countries collectively have to reduce their emissions by 25 to 40% below 1990
levels by 2020, and by 80 to 95% by 2050. The New Zealand government's target range of 10 to 20% reductions by 2020 is a
move in the right direction but falls well short of this collective goal.
"It is also difficult to see how a reduction of only 10% below 1990 levels by 2020 could still enable a reduction of 50%
below 1990 levels by 2050. Unless very clear and comprehensive policies to decarbonise the New Zealand economy are set
in place urgently, investments in carbon-intensive capital infrastructure in the energy, transport and building sector
could make emissions reductions of 50% or more over the next few decades impossible.
"The New Zealand government also subscribes to the goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, but stabilising
greenhouse gas concentrations at 450ppm CO2-equivalent still leaves about a 50% chance of exceeding this temperature.
Stabilising concentrations at 450ppm in the hope to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius is akin to a taxi driver who
takes his passengers to their desired destination only half the time, and the other half drops them in some dodgy and
dangerous suburbs that they never wanted to go to. I am sure the taxi driver's licence would be revoked very quickly,
and yet we seem to be happy to accept it as a strategy to navigate the planet's future."
Additional comments from scientists here.
ENDS